Now that he’s been cut loose from his contract at CNN, former anchor Lou Dobbs is free to do his thing unencumbered by any constraints imposed by media bosses or by archaic notions of journalistic objectivity. And what, you might wonder, would “his thing” be, exactly? Well, it seems like this self-declared champion of the middle class isn’t ruling out a run for office ... yes, even that office.
President Barack Obama has signaled an escalation in the ongoing nuclear dispute with Iran, warning that punitive measures could come soon after Tehran rejected a proposal to send its enriched uranium to Russia or France for further processing.
In a boon for the hearing-impaired as well as non-English speakers, Google has announced it will soon plug in new technology that automatically adds text captions to many videos on its YouTube site. It will allow videos to be searched through text, rather than keywords.
After the UC Board of Regents approved a 32 percent increase in fees, a collection of university students occupied Campbell Hall at UCLA. The last of those students left the building peacefully Thursday evening, suspending protests that saw dozens arrested.
Uri Avnery remembers Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and the historic Oslo agreement that has since turned to mush. “The public memory,” Avnery warns, “is trying nowadays to obliterate” Rabin’s “inner revolution” toward peace with the Palestinians.
For the second time in a couple of weeks, Fox News has run the wrong footage to go along with a story about a crowd gathering in support of a conservative cause, apparently mistakenly creating the impression that more people showed up than was the case.
In a surprising last-minute move, Tony Blair has dropped out of the race for the European Council’s presidency, a position for which he was an early favorite.
A once-temporary ban on the death penalty is now set to be enshrined into Russian law, permanently banning the practice as Russia prepares to join the majority of the world’s countries in outlawing capital punishment.
Over four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a federal judge has ruled in favor of four plaintiffs from the vicinity of the city’s Ninth Ward, finding that the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for some of the damage incurred by the storm and awarding each plaintiff over $700,000.
It has been announced that Caster Semenya, the impressive 18-year-old South African runner, will retain her world title in the 800-meter race despite a public investigation/smear campaign against the athlete regarding the authenticity of her female gender.
The city of Peshawar has become Pakistan’s most popular target for suicide bombings, with yet another deadly blast, this one on Thursday at the city courthouse, bringing the total to 10 attacks in six weeks. According to the Los Angeles Times, at least 19 were killed and 51 wounded in the latest blast.
Sounding a cautionary, and cautiously optimistic, note on the eve of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s second inauguration, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed to a crucial “window of opportunity” for Afghanistan as she called for Karzai and his administration to tackle the corruption issue within their government.
With the threat of a Republican-led filibuster looming large, Majority Leader Harry Reid is faced with the unenviable task of ushering the Senate’s version of the health care reform bill through his congressional chamber. On Wednesday, Reid started his woo-a-thon with an only slightly easier audience: moderate Democrats.
A Canadian couple have negotiated something called a Differentiated Homework Plan with their children’s school after learning that there is no guarantee that after-school toil does a lick of good. As a result, young Spencer and Brittany Milley of Calgary will not be judged on anything but their in-class performance. (continued)
After terminating his second stint as California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be looking for a fourth act in life. The movie-star-turned-politician told reporters in Italy, “I am not going to run for anything else.” So what’s next? Environmental activist? Hummer salesman? Judge on Project Runway? (continued)
Attorney General Eric Holder’s idea to hold a criminal trial in New York City for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attack plot has been sharply criticized, primarily from the right side of the aisle, but Holder defended his decision before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
The folks at Fox News are going to love this one: Lou Dobbs may have left his desk at CNN, but that doesn’t mean he’ll cut out the crazy talk anytime soon. He believes his decline at the network began when President Barack Obama was elected. However, it’s unclear how exactly that might account for the drop in his ratings.
File this one under Dubious Honors of the World: An organization with the fun name of Transparency International has created a list ranking nations according to “perceived levels of corruption in the public sector,” as the BBC put it, and Somalia appears to be the worst of the bunch.
The Israeli Interior Ministry has approved the construction of 900 housing units, four or five bedrooms each, on annexed Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem. Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman said any settlement deal with the U.S. would not include Jerusalem. (continued)
Did you know that there’s a condition called “hypoactive sexual desire disorder,” from which many women suffer? Well, there is, or at least a bunch of scientists have decided there is, and sadly, about 10 percent of premenopausal women grapple with it. Luckily, if unsurprisingly, there might be a pill in the works for just this issue.
Sherrod Brown and other progressive senators held a meeting Monday night with Harry Reid to let the majority leader know they don’t intend to give up any more of an already weakened public option. (continued)
That recession is overstatement looks more unfortunate every day. The Department of Agriculture disclosed Monday that a little more than 49 million Americans had trouble putting food on the table last year—the highest percentage since the government began keeping track in 1995, up 13 million people from the previous year. (continued)
A new Harvard study has uncovered another disturbing reality of America’s broken health care system: Trauma patients without insurance are almost twice as likely to die in the emergency room. Researchers were unable to determine why, but hospitals’ eagerness to transfer the uninsured could be to blame.
Those financial institutions that viewed last year’s bailout as an object lesson that they can carry on as they wish so long as they’re “too big to fail” may have to adopt another approach. At least, that was the message Monday from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, if he makes good on words of warning to big banks.
A year after declaring independence from Serbia, Kosovo has received good marks from European monitors for its first round of local elections, which could lead to wider recognition and acceptance of its newly established status in the international community.
Battlefield in the War of Ideas
